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LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two Copies Received 

DEC 26 1903 

Copyright Entry 

CLASS ct xXc. No. 

COPY B 



Copyright, igoj 

By The F. A. Bassette Company 

Springfield, Massachusetts 



5 



INTRODUCTORT NOTE 



BROWNING supplies abundant material to the 
intelligent and judicious quoter. It is not of the 
sort, however, that is useful — at least is much used 
— for merely decorative purposes. Our poet is never the 
musical and picturesque phraser of commonplace. His 
lines are "rammed with thought" ; they are too condensed 
and profound for the elegant trifler with poetic shreds. 
Often a single stanza, or a brief sentence, flashes upon 
the reader a truth that at once shocks and grips the 
mind, suddenly widening its vision, stimulating the whole 
intellectual movement, and making an impression that 
endures. Many such may be culled from poems like 
"Paracelsus" and "Sordello" and "The Ring and the 
Book." The use of these as quotations is perilous, save 
in the hands of a master, for they are likely so to outshine 
and overweight their setting as to cheapen it hopelessly. 

Apart from their use as quotations, excerpts from 
Browning have a value, unequalled save by Shakespeare, 
as stimulants to reflection or material for the elaborative 
processes of thought. They almost invariably have the 
effect, also, of inciting the appreciative reader to seek a 
fuller acquaintance with this profound and illuminating 
interpreter of life. Collections of them, therefore, are 
always self-justifying. 

R. W. L. has made in this booklet a selection that 
is creditable to her judgment and taste. It might have 



INTRODUCrORr NOTE 

been much enlarged, for the store at her disposal is only 
broached, not exhausted. But, limited as it is in bulk, 
it gives evidence of wide and discriminating reading of the 
poet, and it contains many of his noblest and most 
pregnant utterances. Instinctively she has chosen those 
passages which touch directly on "daily life and duty" — 
on the common problem of living sanely and courageously 
and victoriously amidst the perplexities and sorrows and 
temptations that confront every soul in this world. Here, 
in many a line. Browning sounds his dominant note of faith 
in God and the soul, of loyalty to the truth that is 
revealed within, of undying cheer and unquenchable hope. 
Thus the disciple has become the modest and welcome 
purveyor of the treasures with which the master has 
enriched her own thought and life. 



Philip Stafford Moxom. 



Springfield, Mass. 
July 27, 1903. 



10 



QUOTATIONS FROM BROWNING 




Look one step onward, and secure that step 



I shall arrive, — what time, what circuit first, 
I ask not : but unless God send his hail 
Or blinding fireballs, sleet or stifling snow. 
In some time, his good time, I shall arrive : 
He guides me and the bird. In his good time 



Knowing ourselves, our world, our task so great. 

Our time so brief, 't is clear if we refuse 

The means so limited, the tools so rude 

To execute our purpose, life will fleet, 

And we shall fade, and leave our task undone. 



We will be wise in time : what though our work 
Be fashioned in despite of their ill-service. 
Be crippled every way ? *T were little praise 
Did full resources wait on our goodwill 
At every turn. Let all be as it is. 

13 



(QUOTATIONS FROM BROWNING 



Measure your mind's height by the shade it casts ! 



Love, hope, fear, faith — these make humanity ; 
These are its sign and note and character. 



So doth Thy right hand guide us through the world 
Wherein we stumble. 



*T is only when they spring to heaven that angels 
Reveal themselves to you ; they sit all day 
Beside you, and lie down at night by you 
Who care not for their presence, muse or sleep, 
And all at once they leave you, and you know them 



'T is fruitless for mankind 

To fret themselves with what concerns them not ; 
They are no use that way : they should lie down 
Content as God has made them, nor go mad 
In thriveless cares to better what is ill. 



The sorriest bat which cowers throughout noontide 
While other birds are jocund, has one time 
When moon and stars are blinded, and the prime 
Of earth is his to claim, nor fined a peer. 

14 



(QUOTATIONS FROM BROWNING 

Oh ! Give yourself, excluding aught beside, 
To the day's task ; compel your slave provide 
Its utmost at the soonest ; turn the leaf 
Thoroughly conned. 



All service ranks the same with God, — 
With God, whose puppets, best and worst, 
Are we: there is no last nor first. 

sr 
Things learned on earth we shall practise in heaven. 

w 

I but open my eyes, — and perfection, no more and no 

less. 
In the kind I imagined, full-fronts me, and God is seen 

God 
In the star, in the stone, in the flesh, in the soul and the 

clod. 

sr 

But what if I fail of my purpose here ? 
It is but to keep the nerves at strain, 

To dry ones eyes and laugh at a fall. 
And baffled, get up and begin again, — 

So the chase takes up one's life, that 's all. 

15 



(QUOTATIONS FROM BROWNING 

That low man seeks a little thing to do, 

Sees it and does it ; 
This high man, with a great thing to pursue, 

Dies ere he knows it. 
That low man goes on adding one to one, — 

His hundred 's soon hit ; 
This high man, aiming at a million. 

Misses an unit. 
That has the world here — should he need the next, 

Let the world mind him ! 
This throws himself on God, and unperplexed 

Seeking shall find him. 



In youth I looked to these very skies. 

And probing their immensities, 

I found God there, his visible power ; 

Yet felt in my heart, amid all its sense 

Of the power, an equal evidence 

That his love, there too, was the nobler dower. 



Man therefore, stands on his own stock 

Of love and power as a pin-point rock : 

And, looking to God who ordained divorce 

Of the rock from his boundless continent, 

Sees, in his power made evident. 

Only excess by a million-fold 

O're the power God gave man in the mould. 

16 



(QUOTATIONS FROM BROWNING 

We die : which means to say, the whole 's removed, 

Dismounted wheel by wheel, this complex gin, — 

To be set up anew elsewhere, begin 

A task indeed, but with a clearer clime 

Than the murk lodgment of our building-time. 



And God's own profound 
Was above me, and round me the mountains, 

And under, the sea. 
And within me my heart to bear witness 

What was and shall be. 



This world 's no blot for us, 
Nor blank; it means intensely, and means good: 
To find its meaning is my meat and drink. 

Why stay we on the earth unless to grow ? 



The high that proved too high, the heroic for earth too 
hard. 
The passion that left the ground to lose itself in the 
sky. 
Are music sent up to God by the lover and the bard ; 
Enough that he heard it once : we shall hear it by 
and by. 

17 



(QUOTATIONS FROM BROWNING 

There shall never be one lost good: What was, shall 
live as before ; 
The evil is null, is naught. 



But deep within my heart of hearts there hid 

Ever the confidence, amends for all. 

That heaven repairs what wrong earth's journey did. 



And what is our failure here but a triumph's evidence 
For the fullness of the days ? Have we withered or 
agonized ? 
Why else was the pause prolonged but that singing might 
issue thence ? 
Why rushed the discords in, but that harmony should 
be prized ? 

Rejoice that man is hurled 

From change to change unceasingly, 

His soul's wings never furled ! 



Make the low nature better by your throes! 
Give earth yourself, go up for gain above ! 



For kind 
Calm years, exacting their accompt 
Of pain, mature the mind. 

i8 



(QUOTATIONS FROM BROWNING 

Man might live at first 
The animal life : but is there nothing more ? 
In due time, let him critically learn 
How he lives ; and, the more he gets to know 
Of his own life's adaptabilities, 
The more joy-giving will his life become. 
Thus man, who has this quality, is best. 



How soon a smile of God can change the world ! 
How we are made for happiness — how work 
Grows play, adversity a winning fight ! 



Truth is the strong thing. Let man's life be true. 



Narrow creeds of right and wrong, which fade 
Before the unmeasured thirst for good. 



If I stoop 
Into a dark tremendous sea of cloud. 
It is but for a time ; I press God's lamp 
Close to my breast ; its splendor, soon or late. 
Will pierce the gloom : I shall emerge one day. 



Well, when the eve has its last streak 
The night has its first star. 

19 



QJJ OTATIONS FROM BROWNING 

I know Thee, who has kept my path, and made 
Light for me in the darkness, tempering sorrow 
So that it reached me like a solemn joy ; 
It were too strange that I should doubt Thy love. 



Could we by a wish 
Have what we will and get the future now 
Would we wish aught done undone in the past ? 
So let us wait God's instant men call years. 

w 
The moral sense grows but by exercise 

Healthy minds let bygones be. 

ir 

Help us to turn disaster to account. 

All human plans and projects come to naught : 

My life, and what I know of other lives. 

Prove that : no plan nor project ! God shall care 



Reflect that God, who makes the storm desist, 
Can make an angry violent heart subside. 

20 



(QUOTATIONS FROM BROWN ING 

And, all day, I sent prayer like incense up 

To God the strong, God the beneficent, 

God ever mindful in all strife and strait, 

Who, for our own good, makes the need extreme, 

Till at the last he puts forth might and saves. 



How can man love but what he yearns to help ? 
And that which men think weakness within strength, 
Angels know for strength. 



Be sure they sleep not whom God needs. 

Because a man has shop to mind 

In time and place, since flesh must live, 

Needs spirit lack all life behind, 
All stray thoughts, fancies fugitive. 
All loves except what trade can give ? 



My business is not to remake myself. 

But make the absolute best of what God made. 



No, when the fight begins within himself, 
A man 's worth something. 

21 



(QUOTATIONS FROM BROWNING 

All is as God overrules. 
Besides, incentives come from the soul's self; 
The rest avail not. 

w 

In this world, who can do a thing, will not ; 

And who would do it, cannot, I perceive : 

Yet the will 's somewhat — somewhat, too, the power — 

And thus we half-men struggle. 



I count life just a stuff 
To try the soul's strength on, educe the man. 
Who keeps one end in view makes all things serve. 



Each deed thou hast done 

Dies, revives, goes to work in the world. 



I am grown peaceful as old age to-night. 
I regret little, I would change still less. 
Since there my past life lies, why alter it ? 



Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, 
Or what 's a heaven for ? 

22 



(QUOTATIONS FROM BROWNING 

Poor vaunt of life indeed, 
Were man but formed to feed 
On joy. 

sr 

Then, welcome each rebufF 

That turns earth's smoothness rough. 



Strive, and hold cheap the strain ; 

Learn, nor account the pang ; dare, never grudge the 

throe ! 

w 

What I aspired to be, 
And was not, comforts me : 

A brute I might have been, but would not sink i' the 
scale. 



Should not the heart beat once " How good to live and 
learn " ? 



The Future I may face now I have proved the Past. 

For more is not reserved 

To man, with soul just nerved 

To act to-morrow what he learns to-day. 



(QUOTATIONS FROM BROWNING 

All I could never be, 

All, men ignored in me. 

This, I was worth to God, whose wheel the pitcher 

shaped. 

sr 

Since life fleets, all is change; the Past gone, seize 

to-day. 

tr 

He fixed thee 'mid this dance 
Of plastic circumstance. 

w 

This Present, thou, forsooth, would fain arrest: 

Machinery just meant 
To give thy soul its bent. 

•r 

My times be in Thy hand ! 
Perfect the cup as planned ! 



How strange now looks the life he makes us lead ; 
So free we seem, so fettered fast we are ! 
I feel he laid the fetter : let it lie ! 



God 's in his heaven : 
All 's right with the world. 

24 



(QUOTATIONS FROM BROWNING 

'T is not what man does which exalts him, but what man 
would do. 

sr 

The common problem, yours, mine, every one's. 
Is — not to fancy what were fair in life 
Provided it could be, — but, finding first 
What may be, then find how to make it fair 
Up to our means : a very different thing ! 



How good is man's life, the mere living ! how fit to 

employ 
All the heart and the soul and the senses forever in joy ! 

sr 

Let each task present its petty good to thee. 

Truth is within ourselves ; it takes no rise 
From outward things. 



I am 
A man yet : I need never humble me. 
I would have been — something, I know not what ; 
But though I cannot soar, I do not crawl. 

25 



(QUOTATIONS FROM BROWNING 

Affirm an absolute right to have and use 
Your energies; as though the rivers should say — 
''We rush to the ocean j w^hat have we to do 
With feeding streamlets, lingering in the vales, 
Sleeping in lazy pools ? " 



Hovv^ the world is made for each of us ! 

How all we perceive and know in it 
Tends to some moment's product thus, 

When a soul declares itself — to wit. 
By its fruit, the thing it does! 



My star, God's glow-worm ! Why extend 
That loving hand of his which leads you. 

Yet locks you safe from end to end 

Of this dark world, unless he needs you. 

Just saves your light to spend? 



How should this earth's life prove my only sphere ? 
Can I so narrow sense but that in life 
Soul still exceeds it ?■ 



And one dream came to a pale poet's sleep. 
And he said, " I am singled out by God, 
No sin must touch me." 



26 



(QUOTATIONS FROM BROWNING 

Then life is — to wake not sleep, 

Rise and not rest, but press 
From earth's level where blindly creep 

Things perfected, more or less. 
To the heaven's height, far and steep. 



One who never turned his back but marched breast 
forward, 
Never doubted clouds would break. 
Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would 

triumph. 
Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better. 
Sleep to wake. 



At noonday in the bustle of man's work-time 

Greet the unseen with a cheer ! 
Bid him forward, breast and back as either should be, 

"Strive and thrive !" cry "Speed, — fight on, fare ever 
There as here ! " 



Burn and not smoulder, win by worth, 

Not rest content with a wealth that's dearth ! 



Let me enjoy my own conviction, 

Not watch my neighbor's faith with fretfulness. 

Still spying there some dereliction 

Of truth, perversity, forgetfulness ! 

27 



(QUOTATIONS FROM BROWNING 

God, whose pleasure brought 
Man into being, stands away 
As it were a handbreadth ofF, to give 
Room for the newly-made to live,' 
And look at him from a place apart, 
And use his gifts of brain and heart, 
Given, indeed, but to keep forever. 



Have I been sure this, Christmas-Eve, 
God's own hand did the rainbow weave, 
Whereby the truth from heaven slid 
Into my soul ? 



What is left for us, save, in growth 
Of soul, to rise up, far past both. 
From the gift looking to the giver, 
And from the cistern to the river, 
And from the finite to infinity. 
And from man's dust to God's divinity? 



The truth in God's breast 
Lies trace for trace upon ours impressed : 
Though he is so bright and we so dim. 
We are made in his image to witness him. 

28 



(QUOTATIONS FROM BROWNI NG 

So plain is it that, all the more 

A dispensation's merciful, 

More pettishly we try and cull 

Briers, thistles, from our private plot, 

To mar God's ground where thorns are not! 



While, when the scene of life shall shift, 
And the gay heart be taught to ache, 
As sorrows and privations take 
The place of joy, — the thing that seems 
Mere misery, under human schemes, 
Becomes, regarded by the light 
Of love, as very near or quite 
As good a gift as joy before. 



But shall we award 
Less honor to the hull which, dogged 
By storms, a mere wreck, waterclogged. 
Masts by the board, her bulwarks gone 
And stanchions going, yet bears on, — 
Than to mere lifeboats, built to save. 
And triumph o'er the breaking wave ? 



No matter what the object of a life, 
Small work or large, — the making thrive a shop, 
Or seeing that an empire take no harm, — 
There are known fruits to judge obedience by. 

29 



(QUOTATIONS FROM BROWNING 

And so I live, you see, 
Go through the world, try, prove, reject. 
Prefer, still struggling to effect 
My warfare ; happy that I can 
Be crossed and thwarted as a man. 
Not left in God's contempt apart. 
With ghastly smooth life, dead at heart. 
Tame in earth's paddock as her prize. 



I find advance i' the main, and notably 
The Present an improvement on the Past, 
And promise for the Future — which shall prove 
Only the Present with its rough made smooth, 
Its indistinctness emphasized. 



Learn, my gifted friend, 
There are two things i' the world, still wiser folk 
Accept — intelligence and sympathy. 



King, all the better he was cobbler once, 

He should know, sitting on the throne, how tastes 

Life to who sweeps the doorway. 



Leave the flesh to the fate it was fit for ! the spirit be thine. 

30 



(QUOTATIONS FROM BROWNING 

I like the thought he should have lodged me once 
r the hole, the cave, the hut, the tenement, 
The mansion and the palace; made me learn 
The feel o' the first, before I found myself 
Loftier i' the last, not more emancipate; 
From first to last of lodging, I was I, 
And not at all the place that harbored me. 



Hear the truth, and bear the truth, 
And bring the truth to bear on all you are 
And do, assured that only good comes thence 
Whate'er the shape good take ! 



Do I find love so full in my nature, God's ultimate gift, 
That I doubt his own love can compete with it ? 



I believe it ! 'T is thou, God, that givest, 't is I who 

receive : 
In the first is the last, in Thy will is my power to believe. 

sr 

He who did most, shall bear most ; the strongest shall 

stand the most weak. 
'T is the weakness in strength, that I cry for ! my flesh, 

that I seek 
In the Godhead ! I seek and I find it. 

31 



(QUOTATIONS FROM BROWNING 

The man taught enough by life's dream, of the rest to 

make sure; 
By the pain-throb, triumphantly winning intensified bliss, 
And the next world's reward and repose, by the struggles 

in this. 

w 

The rose will bloom when the storm is passed. 

That what began best, can't end worst. 
Nor what God blessed once, prove accurst. 



Live long and happy, and in that thought die ; 
Glad for what was. 

Nay, got foretaste too 
Of better life beginning where this ends. 



No work begun shall ever pause for death ! 

'T is Venice, and 't is Life — as good you sought 
To spare me the Piazza's slippery stone 
Or keep me to the unchoked canals alone, 
As hinder Life the evil with the good 
Which make up Living, rightly understood. 

32 



(QUOTATIONS FROM BROW NING 

And here where your praise might yield returns, 
And a handsome word or two give help. 

IT 

'T is looking downward that makes one dizzy. 

sr 

A world, as God has made it ! All is beauty : 
And knowing this, is love, and love is duty. 



God's gift was that man should conceive of truth 
And yearn to gain it, catching at mistake. 
As midway help till he reach fact indeed. 



Man is not God but hath God's end to serve, 
A master to obey, a course to take. 
Somewhat to cast ofF, somewhat to become. 



Man must pass from old to new, 
From vain to real, from mistake to fact. 
From what once seemed good, to what now proves best. 



Was man made a wheelwork to wind up. 
And be discharged, and straight wound up anew ? 
No ! — grown, his growth lasts ; taught, he ne'er forgets. 

33 



(QUOTATIONS FROM BROWNING 

Man should mount on each 
New height in view ; the help whereby he mounts, 
The ladder-rung his foot has left, may fall, 
Since all things suffer change save God the Truth. 



Then, as new lessons shall be learned in these 

Till earth's work stop and useless time run out 

So duly, daily, needs provision be 

For keeping the soul's prowess possible, 

Building new barriers as the old decay, 

Saving us from evasion of life's proof. 

Putting the question ever, does God love and will ye 

Hold that truth against the world ? 



Is not God now i' the world his power first made ? 
Is not his love at issue still with sin, 
Visibly when a wrong is done on earth ? 



Nothing can be as it has been before ; 

Better, so call it, only not the same. 
To draw one beauty into our hearts' core. 

And keep it changeless ! such our claim. 

34 



(QUOTATIONS FROM BROWNING 

Meantime hold hard by truth and his great soul, 
Do out the duty ! Through such souls alone 
God stooping shows sufficient of his light 
For us i' the dark to rise by. 



The proper 
Friend-making, everywhere friend-finding soul, 
Fit for the sunshine, so, it followed him. 
A happy-tempered bringer of the best 
Out of the worst. 



When man, appalled at Nature, questioned first. 
What if there lurk a might behind this might ? 
He needed satisfaction God could give. 
And did give. 



Oh, we'er sunk enough here, God knows ! 
But not quite so sunk that moments. 
Sure though seldom are denied us, 
When the spirit's true endowments 
Stand out plainly from its false ones 
And apprise it if pursuing 
Or the right way or the wrong way, 
To its triumph or undoing. 

35 



(QUOTATIONS FROM BROWNING 

" But the soul is not the body : " and the breath is not 

the flute; 
Both together make the music : either marred and all is 

mute. 

sr 

Only grant a second life ; I acquiesce 
In this present life as failure, count misfortune's worst 

assaults 
Triumph, not defeat, assured that loss so much the more 

exalts 
Gain about to be. 

sr 

Take the joys and bear the sorrows — neither with 

extreme concern ! 
Living here means nescience simply : 't is next life that 

helps to learn. 



Only grant my soul may carry high through death her 

cup unspilled, 
Brimming though it be with knowledge, life's loss drop 

by drop distilled, 
I shall boast it mine — the balsam, bless each kindly 

wrench that wrung 
From life's tree its inmost virtue, tapped the root whence 

pleasure sprung, 
Barked the bole, and broke the bough, and bruised the 

berry, left all grace 
Ashes in death's stern alembic, loosed elixir in its place ! 

36 



(QUOTATIONS FROM BROWNING 

Not alone do I declare 
Life must needs be borne, — I also will that man become 

aware 
Life has worth incalculable, every moment that he spends 
So much gain or loss for that next life which on this life 
depends. 

sr 

If action more amuse thee than the passive attitude, 
Bravely bustle through thy being, busy thee for ill or 

good, 
Reap this life's success or failure ! Soon shall things be 

unperplexed 
And the right and wrong, now tangled, lie unravelled in 

the next. 

tr 

In this first 
Life, I see the good of evil, why our world began at 

worst : 
Since time means amelioration, tardily enough displayed, 
Yet a mainly onward moving, never wholly retrograde. 



Just the creature I was bound 
To be, I should become, nor thwart at all 
God's purpose in creation. I conceive 
No other duty possible to man, — 
Highest mind, lowest mind, — no other law 
By which to judge life failure or success. 

37 



(QUOTATIONS FROM BROWNING 

Do the best with the least change possible : 

Carry the incompleteness on, a stage, 

Make what was crooked straight, and roughness smooth, 

And weakness strong. 

w 

The love of peace, care for the family. 
Contentment with what 's bad but might be worse — 
Good movements these ! and good, too, discontent. 
So long as that spurs good, which might be best, 
Into becoming better, anyhow. 



This is the honor, — that no thing I know, 
Feel or conceive, but I can make my own 
Somehow, by use of hand or head or heart : 
This is the glory, — that in all conceived. 
Or felt or known, I recognize a mind 
Not mine but like mine, — for the double joy,- 
Making all things for me and me for Him. 



I say, therefore, to live out one's life 

r the world here, with the chance, — whether by pain 

Or pleasure be the process, long or short 

The time, august or mean the circumstance 

To human eye, — of learning how set foot 

Decidedly on some one path to Heaven. 

38 



(QUOTATIONS FROM BROWNING 

Correct the evil, mitigate your best, 

Blend mild with harsh, and soften black to gray 

If gray may follow with no detriment 

To the eventual perfect purity! 



The seed o' the apple-tree 
Brings forth another tree which bears a crab: 
'T is the Great Gardener grafts the excellence 
On wildings where he will. 



The ingenuities, each active force 

That turning in a circle on itself 

Looks neither up nor down but keeps the spot. 

Mere creature-like and, for religion, works. 

Works only and works ever, makes and shapes 

And changes, still wrings more of good from less. 

Still stamps some bad out, where was worst before, 

So leaves the handiwork, the act and deed. 

Were it but house and land and wealth, to show 

Here was a creature perfect in the kind — 

Whether as bee, beaver, or behemoth. 

What 's the importance ? he has done his work 

For work's sake, worked well, earned a creature's praise. 

39 



QIJ OTATIONS FROM BROWNING 

Never was so plain a truth 
As that God drops his seed of heavenly flame 
Just where he wills on earth : sometimes where man 
Seems to tempt — such the accumulated store 
Of faculties — one spark to fire the heap ; 
Sometimes where, fireball-like, it falls upon 
The naked unpreparedness of rock. 
Burns, beaconing the nations through their night. 



The ignorance, stupidity, the hate. 

Envy malice and uncharitableness 

That bar your passage, break the flow of you 

Down from those happy heights where many a cloud 

Combined to give you birth and bids you be 

The royalest of rivers : on you glide 

Silverly till you reach the summit-edge. 

Then over, on to all that ignorance. 

Stupidity, hate, envy, bluffs and blocks. 

Posted to fret you into foam and noise. 

What of it ? Up you mount in minute mist, 

And bridge the chasm that crushed your quietude, 

A spirit-rainbow, earthborn jewelry 

Outsparkling the insipid firmament 

Blue above Terni and its orange-trees. 

40 



QUOTATIONS FROM BROWNIN G 

Such a starved bank of moss 

Till, that May-morn, 
Blue ran the flash across : 

Violets were born ! 

Sky — what a scowl of cloud 

Till, near and far, 
Ray on ray split the shroud : 

Splendid, a star ! 

World — how walled about 

Life with disgrace 
Till God's own smile came out: 

That was thy face! 



Would you have your songs endure? 
Built on the human heart! — why, to be sure 
Yours is one sort of heart — but I mean theirs, 
Ours, every one's, the healthy heart one cares 
To build on! 



A great is better than a little aim. 
41 



(QUOTATIONS FROM BROWNING 

One great aim, like a guiding-star, above — 
Which tasks strength, wisdom, stateliness, to lift 
His manhood to the height that takes the prize; 
A prize not near — lest overlooking earth 
He rashly spring to seize it — nor remote, 
So that he rest upon his path content: 
But day by day, while shimmering grows shine, 
And the faint circlet prophesies the orb, 
He sees so much as, just evolving these. 
The stateliness, the wisdom and the strength, 
To due completion, will suffice his life. 
And lead him at his grandest to the grave. 



Where is the use of the lip's red charm, 
The heaven of hair, the pride of the brow. 
And the blood that blues the inside arm — 
Unless we turn, as the soul knows how, 
The earthly gift to an end divine? 



Stake your counter as boldly every whit. 
Venture as warily, use the same skill. 
Do your best, whether winning or losing it. 
If you choose to play! — is my principle. 
Let a man contend to the uttermost 
For his life's set prize, be it what it will! 

42 



(QUOTATIONS FROM BROWNING 

But ever, ever this farewell to Heaven, 
Welcome to earth — this taking death for life — 
This spurning love and kneeling to the vv^orld — 
Oh Heaven, it is too often and too old! 



Is this our ultimate stage, or starting-place 
To try man's foot, if it will creep or climb, 
'Mid obstacles in seeming, points that prove 
Advantage for who vaults from low to high 
And makes the stumbling-block a stepping-stone ? 



To have to do with nothing but the true. 
The good, the eternal — and these, not alone 
In the main current of the general life. 
But small experiences of every day. 
Concerns of the particular hearth and home : 
To learn not only by a comet's rush 
But a rose's birth, — not by the grandeur, God 
But the comfort, Christ. 



Life is probation and the earth no goal 

But starting-point of man : compel him strive. 

Which means, in man, as good as reach the goal. 

43 



(QUOTATIONS FROM BROWNING 

Crush the tree, branch and trunk and root beside, 
Whichever twig or leaf arrests a streak 
Of possible sunshine else would coin itself. 
And drop down one more gold piece in the path. 



Why comes temptation but for man to meet 
And master and make crouch beneath his foot. 
And so be pedestalled in triumph ? 



L.ofC. 



44 



DEC 28 1903 



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